Many of these comments surprised me in the way that they attacked me and the review without properly reading the review and seeing where I actually did praise PCLinuxOS; instead, they focused on the issues that I did have (and the issues that I didn't have or that I had but made clear that those were not to be blamed on PCLinuxOS) and magnified them to the level of a capital offense. Frankly, I was disappointed by the lack of understanding and comprehension among the readers, and it along with similarly savage comments on other reviews of PCLinuxOS that were not 100% positive is unfortunately enough to steer me away from reviewing PCLinuxOS in the future. Anyway, let's get on with the comments.
An anonymous reader said (later following this up with a little conversation with me in the comments), "Please correct me if I am wrong. You tested an operating system through a live environment, and then tested an install through a virtualbox session within the live environment. Is this a fair review? I wonder if you would have needed to tinker if you did a full and proper install. I do agree with you regarding the partition manager at install...it could be better. Emil" Of the rather bluntly critical comments I saw (many of which at best shared these concerns, at worst just engaged in ad hominem attacks), I felt this was the most fair, informed, and courteous of them all, and I'd like to thank this commenter for maintaining civility where other commenters had lost all such semblance.
Another anonymous commenter tried to fight back against that tide: "I use PCLINUXOS, and i am shame of this commentaries from the users. This is the kind of comments that give bad name to the community and the distro itself. Some PCLinuxOS users are know for no respect for the reviewers, this is not the first time and will not be the last! In the future do not complainin when people say that PCLinuxOS users are arrogant! Respect and be respected!"
Yet another anonymous reader had this related suggestion: "Has anyone tried iGolaware or Mageia? Both seem quite good, former is based on Ubuntu and latter fork of Mandriva, now independent. Not a troll :),just thought of asking if anyone had any experience with either."

Still another anonymous commenter said, "I've been using PClinuxOS for nearly 4 months and have found it a very good distro - my hardware is approx 2 years old - and it all works very well. The community very friendly. I think a few - and I would say it is just a few - do get defensive, but sometimes the reviews are so inaccurate I can sort of (partly) understand it. But if I can defend them for a moment, I "rarely" see them being personal in their responses, and secondly, the forum is the best by far of any of the ones I use. You only have to go the Welcome Centre to see how friendly, and helpful, they are. Thanks for reading."

Thanks to all those (yes, even the one who called me a "[living] Murphy's law", for your comment was a prime example of said ad hominem attacks) who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I plan to have at least three posts, two of which will be reviews again; no, I can't guarantee that either will be 100% positive, though I hope they will turn out that way. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

5 comments:

>Many of these comments surprised me in the way that they attacked me and the review without properly reading the review and seeing where I actually did praise PCLinuxOS; instead, they focused on the issues that I did have (and the issues that I didn't have or that I had but made clear that those were not to be blamed on PCLinuxOS)

Yeah, a lot of whiners out there. Some people are incapable of accepting constructive criticism. I like your reviews, they're honest,a nd friendly. You tell what needs telling, and you don't be hurtful about it. Nothing wrong with how you do it, and also nothing wrong with trying on Virtualbox, you're hardly the only one to do this. I've gotten to testing a lot on it myself. Please continue giving honest, quality reviews, I at least enjoy reading them. Thank you. :)

Well this is a rarity: comments on the "Featured Comments" post!@DarkDuck: Yes, I see it a lot, and I sympathize with you. I actually think you have it worse because I can tell that your native language is not English, and I see comments on your blog that also needlessly tie that in when savaging your reviews.@David: (Sorry, I asked you a question in response to your comment on the PCLinuxOS review without first seeing your response here.) I'm glad that you like what I write. Given that, I think you should know there are two more coming out this week, and one more probably coming next week.Thanks for the comments!

I was surprised myself when I read the comments on your PCLOS review...I found it very useful and, as I told you, it was thanks to your analysis that I went for the PCLOS install. What's odd is that, being a new member, I can confirm that the PCLOS community is extremely friendly and warm. Those comments you got do not match what I've found in the PCLOS community. And the distro is great, too. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for your work and you have my readerhip ;-)

@Mechatotoro: I am absolutely happy as well to have your readership! Anyway, while it may be so that on the whole the PCLinuxOS community is quite warm, helpful, and friendly, it seems like the comments I got are the norm for other reviews that also had even one or two negative things to say about PCLinuxOS. It seems like those guys go out trolling for reviews that aren't 100% supportive of PCLinuxOS and viciously strike said reviews/reviewers. Thanks for the comment!